Gig vs. Studio kit

I only bring my kit when its needed. Otherwise I bring the hardware, cymbals, pedal, throne and snare (best ones I got) mainly because I believe we mainly relly on the sound guy (lost the word in english for that) to make it work and assuming he mixes his kit (kick drum/toms) every other night I'm comfortable with that and hardly regret. Tho sometimes I have to run back home to get toms after soundcheck.
 
taiko said:
Yeah, I think that's it, too. But it still doesn't make sense to me. I can't imagine a violinist taking a cheap violin on gigs to avoid damage. They just are really careful. So I find this a weird thing that drummers do, but that other musicians don't. But I'm more than willing to be proven wrong.
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Absolutely other musicians do it. I had a friend who played French horn the US Army band. He had his personal horn, and the Army also let him play one of theirs (not as nice). He definitely sized up gigs before deciding which horn to take. His decisions weren't based on sound, but rather, how likely the horn was to get damaged. Heck, even in high school I remember some of the wealthier kids had a couple different horns. The cheaper ones were used for marching band, the nicer ones for concert band. On guitar forums, guys talk about it (using cheap guitars for live shows) all the time. It is extremely common to see "Never Gigged!" in 'for sale' ads. Also, Billy Gibbons (ZZ Top) has a very famous very valuable guitar he calls "Pearly Gates". When he tours, he has a couple replicas he uses. Pearly Gates stays home. If a guy at that level can't feel secure...
 
With drums I think the difference in cost far exceeds the difference in sound quality.

My stage custom I paid $400 for.
I think my sonors were about $4,000.
My mapex were about $2000 all up.

They all sound good enough. If I know some idiot is going to scratch them or lose something or knock them over, which kit am I going to take out?

Of course I'm going to take the yamahas. They're much easier to carry too.
 
larryace said:
I bring my best bronze, and my best snare to all gigs. What's left? I can make any kick drum I own sound great. What's left? Toms. I use toms maybe 10% of the time. And the sound I get from them is just fine, because I tune them high enough to register in the crowd.. So bringing a high dollar kit really has no upside other than one's own vanity. Which I totally get. I used to gig the best kit I had at the time. (DW) Now I have a kit that is in a different universe... Guru...and I can't see taking that particular kit out, too much sentimental value. Plus the fact that the toms fly off cymbal stands.....it takes too long to set up, for me. I need a bass drum tree because I'm always just making it time-wise.

As long as I have my bronze and my snare, which is the lions share of my tone, the rest isn't nearly as important.
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i think Larry makes a good detailed point here. Prioritise. Especially if you're working through a good PA, bass drums & toms can be made to sound very good. Perhaps not absolutely optimum, but well good enough. That's in a pop/rock setting. A jazz or other setting where the finer aspects of playing timbres/dynamics are more important, use your best stuff for sure.

I gig some nice stuff, but then again, my circumstances are somewhat different to most. In general, I agree with your statement, but it's a judgement call on each gig. I certainly wouldn't knowingly put my really good stuff in harms way.
 
Bobrush said:
Also, Billy Gibbons (ZZ Top) has a very famous very valuable guitar he calls "Pearly Gates". When he tours, he has a couple replicas he uses. Pearly Gates stays home. If a guy at that level can't feel secure...
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Totally out of the league of most peoples drum kits. Pearly Gates is a 1959 Les Paul standard. The replica costs $11,000.​
What would/can a real, vintage 59 cost?​
"So if you’re got the cash and you're ready to buy one, what's the exact price? It depends on the quality of the instrument, the condition, how original all the parts are, etc. The makers a ’59 Les Paul documentary The 1959 Burst claim that since they’ve been posting clips on YouTube, value for the ’59 has gone up from $400,000 to $750,000. Lukather’s ’59 is estimated to be worth $350-500,000."​
 
harryconway said:
Totally out of the league of most peoples drum kits. Pearly Gates is a 1959 Les Paul standard. The replica costs $11,000.​
What would/can a real, vintage 59 cost?​
"So if you’re got the cash and you're ready to buy one, what's the exact price? It depends on the quality of the instrument, the condition, how original all the parts are, etc. The makers a ’59 Les Paul documentary The 1959 Burst claim that since they’ve been posting clips on YouTube, value for the ’59 has gone up from $400,000 to $750,000. Lukather’s ’59 is estimated to be worth $350-500,000."​
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My point was that other musician's, of ALL kinds (I also commented on high school kids), definitely make choices about which gear to bring to a show, and that the decision is frequently to not bring the best gear. Billy Gibbons could also afford to have private security just for that one guitar if he wanted to, and I'm pretty sure Billy personally carries a gun. Nevertheless, he has decided that Pearly Gates stays at home.
 
taiko said:
That makes sense. Perhaps it has to do with the type of music. I hate rock, so I would not even think of playing in an environment like that. So it wouldn't occur to me to use a cheap drum kit for fear of patrons damaging it.
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I hear what you are saying because I hate jazz and big bands and I would never play, much less step foot in a place like that. If I had a nice kit, it would stay home, but I'd take a nice snare drum just about anywhere.
 
I can't say that I have a studio kit, but I have a kit that has sentimental value that stays home. But I don't really want much in the way of a prom queen that I can't take to the dance. I want to be able to have a solid kit that sounds good and can be gigged. That being said, my gigging kit is a Tama Artstar Custom in a sweet green lacquer finish. I take care of it and do what I can to protect it. But I play heavy rock. I have to be able to set up and tear down quickly so the next band can set up. Sometimes people want to be "helpful" and grab and move gear. I usually try to head them off at the pass and buy myself enough time to do it myself.

I want my gigging kit to be like a Glock or an iron-sights M-4. It doesn't need to be very pretty or flashy, but I want it to make sense, be easy to use, and go BANG when I want them to.

But everyone has their own idea about how attached they are to their gear. My bass player saved up, like forever to buy his Rickenbacker 4003. But he moves around with it strapped on not watching where the headstock is swinging. Blam, into a cymbal, or scrape, into a wall... This always makes me cringe and freak out a little inside. Because if someone was that careless with my drums, I would be all over them like white on rice. But he doesn't mind a "road worn" look to his gear. It doesn't bother him to tear pieces of tolex off the side of his 810 cab.

I can't imagine any drummer, paying extra, hell, even less for a "road worn" set of drums like people do for other stringed instruments. Could you imagine, a DW road rash kit? Drummers don't go for that as much. I have to say, it might be more liberating buying a kit that is used. That way YOU are not the one putting the first scratch on the finish, or ding in the shell. I am not sure I could let go though. I try to take care of my gear so it can take care of me.
 
Dre25 said:
With drums I think the difference in cost far exceeds the difference in sound quality.

My stage custom I paid $400 for.
I think my sonors were about $4,000.
My mapex were about $2000 all up.

They all sound good enough. If I know some idiot is going to scratch them or lose something or knock them over, which kit am I going to take out?

Of course I'm going to take the yamahas. They're much easier to carry too.
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If the difference in cost far exceeds diffeence in sound quality, then why do we spend so much money on high end drums? What's the point?
 
Last spring I was playing at an event is Newtown Ct. It was an indoor concert with a Big Band, A full Choir, A Rock band, A Jazz band, A folk band. There were over one hundred performers. I was playing with the jazz band and we were going on third after the Big Band and the Choir. My kit had to sit all set up so the crew could quickly carry it out on stage. It was in a cramped backstage area with many people milling about. Many of them were excited High School students. I brought my Mapex Saturn Manhattan kit. It was accidentally knocked about several times by people who were waiting to go on. It was a nerve racking experience for me. Fortunately nothing happened. I had wished that I had brought my $200 Tama Stagestar several times throughout the evening.
 
bobdadruma said:
Last spring I was playing at an event is Newtown Ct. It was an indoor concert with a Big Band, A full Choir, A Rock band, A Jazz band, A folk band. There were over one hundred performers. I was playing with the jazz band and we were going on third after the Big Band and the Choir. My kit had to sit all set up so the crew could quickly carry it out on stage. It was in a cramped backstage area with many people milling about. Many of them were excited High School students. I brought my Mapex Saturn Manhattan kit. It was accidentally knocked about several times by people who were waiting to go on. It was a nerve racking experience for me. Fortunately nothing happened. I had wished that I had brought my $200 Tama Stagestar several times throughout the evening.
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I've certainly gotten the answer to my question, which I appreciate. I think since I don't usually play in these types of environments, the reasoning had not occurred to me, but it certainly makes sense. Also, it seems a lot of people just don't pay attention to what they are doing and some are just jerks. Last year I was setting up on the deck at a coffee shop. A four year old kid, or so, came over and started pounding on my floor tom. I told him to stop, but he wouldn't. So I found his parents and they didn't seem to care much. After several attempts, I tore the kid off of the drums, which I didn't much want to do since he wasn't my kid. He stayed away for a bit and then came back. When the father slowly headed to get his kid, I looked at him and said, "if you had any idea how much that thing costs, you'd have your kid off of it immediately." That worked. I had kind of forgotten about this (put it out of my mind, I guess) until you posted your experience.

Maybe this thread can morph into a discussion of what sorts of things people do to our drum sets at gigs.
 
In my 40 years of playing I have only seen a few incidents.
Someone fell on a friends kit during a bar scuffle and his bass drum was cracked where the tom mount bolted to the shell.
A friends guitar was smashed at a party by someone who claimed that the spirt if Jimi Hendrix told him to smash it because it wasn't a Strat.
A friends dw 9000 double tom stand went missing.
 
I dunno. I'm putting a '71 Ludwig Standard back together, and I think even though I'm investing hours and hours into it, I'll still take it out to gig. I'm really not that concerned about it, or about the drunk patron.

I do agree though, people seem to see drums as cheap, disposable furniture, just because it gets hit. One church I used to attend in California, one of the drummers was a very sweet older man who had a beautiful, like new Pearl kit in a deep ocean blue lacquer. He left it at the church. One day the stage had to be cleared for a wedding. The drums were roughly tossed in the back room and a bunch of the black metal Mannhassett music stands were thrown on top of them. When this guy came to look for his drums, the finish was all scraped and gouged. That guy took his drums to his car with tears in his eyes and we never saw him again.

At this same church, another kit had all its head stove in my kids from the youth group beating on it with plunger handles...
 
You are at a large party. You have a band set up on the floor with no stage. There are no musicians present.
Guitars and amplifiers are set up with guitars in their stands. You have brass instruments, a keyboard and a set of drums with drum sticks.

Regular party people are let loose on the scene.

Many of the people will feel that it is OK to sit down and play on the drums.
90% of the people will think they know how to play the drums.
And 100% of the people will never touch the rest of the instruments.

.
 
taiko said:
If the difference in cost far exceeds diffeence in sound quality, then why do we spend so much money on high end drums? What's the point?
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Better hardware and build
Knowing you didn't compromise
Having something brand new
Choosing your own specs and finish
Retail therapy

Keep in mind the yamahas were 2nd hand and my other kits were brand new.
 
I had a nice, blonde Slingerland kit back in the 80's. I took it to a party and during the night, somebody leaned really hard on my 12" tom and snapped the tom's mounting arm off of the mount. We didn't have internet or Ebay back then, so I had to replace the whole mount with some cheap Gibraltar mount. I probably would have gone with a 4 piece kit had they snapped off the other drum on the right instead. The drum kit was never the same after that. I was very bummed out about that incident for a long time.
 
When I was in high school, my sisters had a party at the house and I came into my room to see my most prized possession, my nine-piece Tama Granstar kit with one of the toms on the rack pushed down, and resting on the bass drum shell. I think a cymbal was also in the same state. I was hot. I took black electrical tape and wrote out on the wall behind my kit in large 4" lettering...

"IF YOU DARE TOUCH THIS KIT, YOUR SUFFERING WILL BE LEGENDARY!!"

I didn't have an issue after that.
 
I agree with the formula that the greater the distance from the audience, the higher the value of the kit you bring. Guys like Neil Peart can rock a top-shelf kit because the only people getting near it are qualified members of the crew.

The other thing I would consider is my method of transport. If I'm loading them loose into the back of a Mazda, then a cheaper wrapped kit fits the situation better. I watched Bozzio's videos about his mini-jazz kit, which he designed for playing around L.A., and hauling around in the back of his Navigator. The finish is as basic as you can get while still being somewhat durable (blonde lacquer), and he talked about sizing the drums so that he could stack them together, presumably without cases or bags. It was interesting to see what his idea of a "grab 'n go" kit looks like.
 
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